Geez. George Pennachio says there is a surprise in the first half hour.

Like we need more surprises. :::sigh:::

I know! Let’s drink every time there is a camera screw up. Wait…I don’t have enough booze….

Great opening dance by James. He got a tiny bit off time in a couple spots….but this guy is a contender, for reals.

ETA: So Billy Dee is out due to injury. No more elimination or not?? I suspect not since they aren’t doing that stupid elmin stuff before each dance, thank god.

Great dance by Nene. And line of the night goes to Derek Hough: “This lil’ munchkin is ready for you!!” Right to Nene.

ETA2: Forgot to add to my last update that they made it pretty clear that the switch is for one week then they go back to their original partners. It sounds like no more voting – I’m afraid to hope for that to be true.

Liked Danica and Val’s dance very much, but she struck me as a bit melodramatic and not quite real in her package. I’m afraid that’s just her.

ETA3: Beautiful dance by Meryl and Maks but that was in NO WAY a foxtrot…yet no one said a word about it. Bet they would have if Meryl was dancing with Derek. Interesting how now the couples are definitely going back to each other after next week AND they get 10s on a non-foxtrot. I wonder if someone had a fit? Besides most of the fans, I mean. I doubt they listen to us, so what happened? Not that I’m complaining about that part – I’m glad.

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

Okay, time to start a new week. :::sigh::: Like I said in my Dancing by the Numbers post – did everyone vote or are we going to have a “shocking elimination” somewhere in this mix?? It was horrid how they eliminated Diana and I hope they go back to the way they did it last season. This way was just distasteful. Combine that with all the switch up nonsense…well, can we go back to the show I loved, because I neither recognize nor enjoy this one. Hell, it’s Sunday and I haven’t watched all of last week’s show – I keep finding other things to do. Yo, producers – it’s week 3 and I’m already OVER this show – this should be a sign. Every season you lose me a little bit more. But hey, I guess I’m not in your desirable demographic, eh? Tell me – what you gonna do when your undesirables have left you and you still haven’t moved up in the coveted demo?? Get cancelled, that’s what.

WTS is planning something of a Full House reunion for Monday’s show, sources excluslively confirm to E! News.

“It’s the Most Memorable Year theme this week,” explains one insider, “and there are definitely going to be a lot of tears, but also some really inspiring stories! Candace Cameron Bure is going to be talking about her days on Full House and the cast is going to be in the audience to support her.”

That’s sure to bring in the young’uns. Um, only NOT.

So who’s dancing what? Well, DanicaNotADancer was blessed to be given contemporary, although the C-bros don’t really seem to have a great knack for choreographing it. Amy is using new feet – swimming feet, to be exact – in this dance which just amazes me. This woman is BRAVE. And I’m a nervous wreck watching her dance, praying something catastrophic doesn’t happen. Knowing Derek, though, he’s probably planned for that. What’s up with all the Jives in “Most Memorable” week?? Is that weird? And I find it a bit funny that Charlie and Meryl have spent the better part of their lives together, yet one is doing Jive and the other is doing Foxtrot. Hmmm…interesting. I also wonder if Meryl will get the comments about the height disparity that Cody and Witney got. Somehow I doubt it. I also see that Tony has Nene in flats again – will they get called on it? Somehow I doubt that too.

I don’t have the best track record when it comes to dance order this season, especially if they keep on the way they did last week. Yikes.

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

Ah, the week of switch up voting. Is someone trying to make me hate this show?? I mean really. A logical person can look at the voting contest and sense a total clusterf*^k – that the producers will count the votes in which ever of the 6 or 8 ways gives them the results they desire. But I’ll let Courtney go into more detail on that – it just annoys me, as do the Maks/Val fans who insist that Derek fans are only voting to see Derek with Meryl so he can win again. Uh, hello, but I think most Derek fans neither expect nor WANT him to stay with Meryl. I know I speak for a good number of them when I say – we better get Amy back or there will be hell to pay.

Anyway, the switch up is mildly relevant to this post because the voting for it could play spoiler in one couples hopes for the mirror ball trophy. I always wonder if fans who do the twitter voting are good multi-taskers. I know I am, but Vogue says it’s cuz I’m a Gemini…or something like that. 😀 Anyway, there is some serious spamming going on. Like Design a Dance, it’s not the number of fans you have, but how badly those fans want you to win. And how good they are at Spamming. Actually, that could be said for the whole show. So, do we think that someone is going to be a shocking elimination because their fans were too busy tweeting?? Amy? Meryl? Danica? Nene?

I put those four out there because the Derek fans and the C-bros plus Tony fans have been hitting it hard on the twitter vote. Amy has the smallest fanbase on her own, but Derek’s fanbase is the biggest of the pros, judging by Twitter followers. I would hazard that Meryl is safe, but it’s possible any of the other three could be a victim, I suppose.

But let’s look at the scores and see just how likely that is.

Dang, they put a huge spread between Billy Dee and the next lowest group comprised of Nene, Drew and Candace. The judges REALLY want to get rid of him. Well, he was not a great dancer. Entertaining, but not great. And oh my gosh am I developing a straight girl crush on Emma or what? She impressed the hell out of me in her work with Billy Dee – seriously, she’s fantastic. Anyway, I think the judges have finally realized that if they believe someone is the worst dancer, they can’t be whipping out 6s and 7s left and right, they have to get serious. But where they serious enough?? Look at the table below, which gives you all the matchups for week 2.

You’ll see that Billy Dee needs a seemingly large number of votes to get past either Nene, Drew or Candace – about 24.6k votes per million votes cast. You might remember that he needed nearly 20k to stick around over Diana and Sean last week. What’s another 5k? Well, I would hazard a guess that Drew and Candance, at least, are a good bit more popular than either Diana and Sean. But just how popular is Billy Dee?? Nene is the one I can’t put my finger on. Twitter followers is certainly an indication of popularity, but that does NOT always translate into votes on DWTS. In fact, it often doesn’t.

I could be wrong, but I really see the only one vulnerable to Billy Dee is Nene. Why? Well, I think that Drew and Candace surely have enough juice to get past Nene and keep Billy Dee away. But what about the next level up? Cody? Surely Cody has a shit ton of fangirls and he’ll be safe for a while, right? I think so – but note that Nene only needs 4k votes to go by Cody. Since I don’t think that Nene is doing that much better than Amy and Danica in votes, and Billy Dee certainly isn’t, I think those two, along with Meryl and Charlie are certainly safe. James best keep that score up there or he could be in trouble.

Anyway, no sense in drawing it out. I think that Billy Dee is likely to go home. If the Star Wars fans are out in full force, then I think Nene is the one most likely to leave. Candace wouldn’t shock me, neither would Cody since all the talk seems to be Amy/Meryl/Charlie – but I really think it’s going to be Billy Dee or Nene. Billy Dee first, Nene second. We find out soon!

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

Wow. A lot happened at the start of the show. Maybe I should do a list…

TPTB thought it would be cute to pair the couples in their opening dance by rivalry – Danica and Candace, Meryl and Maks and so on. Stoopid.

It’s always nice to see Maks dance with his daughter Witney…oh. Wait. 😉

Surprise double elimination?? They must be making sure they don’t end up with another Bill Engvall situation. Well, that and it’s good to have an even number of couples for the big switcheroo

Drew is safe right off the bat? Should I draw a conclusion for that or is that going to occur throughout the show?

Are they going to show video of each star picking their dance to prove they didn’t make it up?? They do realize that shit could be filmed anytime by cooperative stars, right? 😀

Okay….enough for now. I missed Drew’s dance….

ETA:
Welcome to ringer judging, Val.

Zendaya is in the audience looking like a 35 year old.

Billy Dee is safe, eh? Might be Dean and Karina going home.

ETA2: Okay for those of you wanting to vote for the Switch, it’s just like Karina said. You vote like this:

#DWTSStarPro For example, #DWTSMerylDerek or #DWTSAmyMark That’s all you need. Or you can retweet your friends. I would add slightly new content at least once in a while so you don’t get tagged as spam.

ETA3: So Diana went home. They will reveal the second eliminee after NeNe, Sean and Cody have all danced.

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

Another week, another set of dances that the celebs supposedly picked. Riiiight. Tell it to Candace. Lots of angst about the switch up – I say “bring it”. I’m quite confident that my favorite pro will look pretty darn good with anyone, included Nene or Diana….or James or Cody for that matter. I refuse to get worked up about the switch, only about people bugging me about the switch. 😉 Part of me hopes Derek will indeed get Nene just to see what the “He’s never been challenged” people will say when they do terrific together. I imagine they will pretend it never happened, or she will magically become a ringer on the order of Meryl. 😀

The dances for this week? See below. I noticed that Val and Danica are already done with camera blocking. Figured I better get the post up. I figure that Sean is in trouble with the Salsa, as is Drew with the Jive. NeNe – hard to say. She’s a pretty good dancer, but I suspect we’ll see a non-jive kinda like was saw a non-cha cha. Question is, will Tony ever get called out? He doesn’t seem to get called out for anything that Derek and Mark get called out for. I think Danicathetotallynonringer will do fantastic with Samba. Billy could surprise us with the Tango and I expect Charlie to KILL the tango. Cody is a question mark. I really liked his cha cha on rewatching it – it could go either way though on Tango. Meryl – don’t be silly. Her swing will be amazing. I think I will be holding my breath during Amy’s swing, as there are apparently lifts and such. Scary. James and Salsa?? Hmmmm…I think he’ll be okay. We’ll find out soon!!

I kinda half assed a dance order, below. Not really expecting it to be close. I sure wasn’t last week when I gave it more thought.

Diana and Henry – Cha Cha Cha
1-800-868-3411

NeNe And Tony – Jive
1-800-868-3401

Danica and Val – Samba
1-800-868-3403

Billy and Emma – Tango
1-800-868-3405

James and Peta – Salsa
1-800-868-3402

Charlie and Sharna – Tango
1-800-868-3412

Sean and Karina – Salsa
1-800-868-3404

Candace and Mark – Rumba
1-800-868-3407

Amy and Derek – Swing
1-800-868-3410

Cody and Witney – Tango
1-800-868-3408

Drew and Cheryl – Jive
1-800-868-3409

Meryl and Maks – Swing
1-800-868-3406

A whole bunch of instagram pics – what I usually do is post the first several I find, no matter who they are. Yes, I have two of Amy – I think she’s amazing. Sue me. Read more..

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

This is Lori! That Switcheroo Thingy is upon us already and I am DREADING it!!!!! I don’t want it to happen, but it’s going to happen!!!

Apparently, the viewers are going to vote after the first elimination, for the Switch to happen (I am guessing) in week 3. And I am going to guess that TPTB are still trying to decide how they’re going to work it. Knowing them, they’re screw it up. Here is what what we know about the switcheroo, make sure you read if you’ve not already.

Anyway, since we are going to be STUCK with it, I thought we could take the time to share how WE would match them up. For our purposes, we will ignore the elimination, and just match all 12 celebrities to a pro, and since I don’t know how they’re planning it, I’m adding the Troupe in also.

Here’s the Celebrities:

Danica

Amy

Candace

NeNe

Diana

Meryl

Charlie

Cody

James

Billy Dee

Sean

Drew

Here’s the Pros:

Cheryl

Karina

Witney

Emma

Sharna

Peta

Lindsey

Jenna

Derek

Val

Maks

Tony

Mark

Henry

Sasha

Artem

So…. YOUR job now is to rematch the celebrities to a different pro, and unfortunately, ALL must be rematched. How would you do it, and why would you make the choices you did?

Here are mine. I picked two same sex couples, but, that doesn’t mean that the couples can be same sex or not for what they have planned.

1. Amy and Henry. I want her to stay with Derek, but since she can’t, I figured he is closer than the other choices. Or Sasha.

2. Diana and Cheryl, because Diana said she wouldn’t mind dancing with Cheryl.

3. Drew and Derek, because I liked that ad, and I’m sure that both Drew and Derek can come up with a creative dance full of humor.

4. Charlie and Karina because she is a top choreographer.

5. Candace and Val. No real reason, I just would like to see how he would work with her.

6. NeNe and Maks just to see if there’s fireworks

7. Meryl and Mark because he’s shorter than Maks.

8. Danica and Artem just to see what he can do, since I’m not familiar with him. I figure one week might be fine. Or Sasha.

9. Sean and Peta would make a gorgeous pair.

10. Cody and Emma because she’s young, and I’d love to see what she can do with a young partner

11. James and Sharna would make another gorgeous pair.

12. Billy Dee and Tony. This was BY FAR the hardest pair for me. I wanted to keep BDW with a female partner, but the ones I had left, I felt were just too young to pair with him, and I didn’t really want to shuffle the others around. Tony’s always done well with older partners, so I chose Tony…. With a lot of hesitation.

ABC Medianet has released show details for next week! Read carefully for what they write on the switch dance. Also note how there is a “announcement” right after the opening number.

“Episode 1802” – The competition heats up on “Dancing with the Stars” as the celebrities take on a new style of dance, MONDAY, MARCH 24 (8:00-10:01 p.m., ET). The show kicks off with a show-stopping opening number choreographed by Mandy Moore featuring the entire cast followed by an announcement that is not to be missed! Each couple will then perform a dance style of the celebrities choosing including Swing, Tango, Jive, Salsa, Samba, Rumba and the Cha Cha. The couples face the first nerve-racking round of elimination.

Additionally, “The Switch Up” begins and voting guidelines will be revealed live. For the first time ever, America will be given the power to vote and change celebrity and professional dance pairings. This new rule will affect all couples as they will be required to switch partners. Never before have dance partnerships been split up during the course of competition.

ETA: Ok, I wonder if this has something to do with the Switch Up Dance as Tuesday Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli will make a “big surprise announcement” on GMA. Whatever the case, be sure to tune in. From ABCMediaNet….

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

And it’s a fun one. Though note how they mention the Switch Up dance in it and how we take control of the ballroom. Does this mean they will be doing the Switch Up dance already for the following week? Hmmm, this might be cool for some couples and not so much for others. I’m not all too anxious to see Amy teamed up with anyone else, but, Derek! 😐

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

Just a quick picture update: If you head to the Daily Mail, you can view new pics of some the cast arriving for Dancing With The Stars rehearsals yesterday (Jim, for you! lol). Also, I’m loving this new “Staying Alive” instagram by Sean Avery. Check it out and Happy Spring.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.